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1. The Cabinet considered a Memoranduh by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary (C(89)14) seeking approval for a draft statement which he proposed to make to Parliament the following day announcing the Government's decisions on assurances to Hong Kong.
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THE FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH SECRETARY said that the proposals in his Memorandum were the culmination of lengthy consideration the Sub-Committee on Hong Kong of the Defence and Oversea icy Committee. The essential purpose of the proposed scheme s to persuade Hong Kong residents that they could safely
In there and that it was in their interests to do so. The Shy Comittee had concluded that the award of citizenship would be more effective than the award of right of abode in this respect, and had therefore approved the former option despite the disadvantage that it required primary legislation. A scheme based on citizenship had the further advantage that it would be more diffic for a Government of a different complexion to revoke it le proposed overall ceiling of 225,000 including dependants at the bottom end of expectations in Hong Kong, but should nevertheless be sufficient to achieve the objective of the scheme De scheme would be based on a points system, with twice as ma laces for the private sector compared with the public secto would be operated by the Home Secretary on the basis of recommendation by the Governor of Hong Kong. There would be no for appeal. There would be no separate provision for non-emic chinese, and those admitted would count against the 225,000 2 Although the Sub-Committee had decided that no total fare for heads of household should be published, he had been paraded by senior backbench opinion that there would be considerable Parliamentary interest in such a figure, and he therefore proposed that an estimated total of about 60,000 should be mentioned in the statement.
the statement. Reports of the present proposals had already aroused considerable opposition among the Government supporters in Parliament, to which it had not yet been possible respond by describing and justifying the proposals. His statement would remedy this and, while he did not under-estimate the strength of this opposition, he believed there was a good chance of winning over opinion among the Government's supporters once the facts and arguments were fairly put. He proposed to stressis statement that the objective was to persuade key people to remain in Hong Kong not to bring them to Britain. The Government's proposals were specific to Hong Kong and of limited duration, did not undermine the principles of the British National Act 1981; he would also draw attention to similar schemes/rated by other countries. The proposals aimed to strike lence between the needs of Hong Kong and the immigration condemns of the United Kingdom. If contrary to his expectation
recipients of citizenship decided to come to the United Kingdom, at worst the country would have gained a number of people
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